About

Hi. Welcome to my corner of the internet! Be sure to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, the Shameless Beauty Digest–where faith, poetry, parenthood, travel, marriage, and music have coffee together (or maybe it’s just me drinking the coffee). I hope to inspire you to notice the beauty in your own heart and the world around you with wonder and fearlessness. There is so much goodness to be found in the everyday mess.

Although the content here is geared towards women, I love sharing with anyone who wants to listen.

You probably want to know more about who I am.

I originally hail from the great state of Texas, San Antonio to be exact. I was born singing, but after indulging in everything from jazz to rap to eighties power ballads, I took my lungs to Anderson University in Indiana to get “properly” trained. I have spent the majority of my operatic career cross-dressing, as most mezzo-sopranos (schiffenfach if you want to get technical) do. I unexpectedly fell in love with a Maui boy shortly after graduation and temporarily traded in my audition heels for marriage and motherhood. Although the latter has made pursuing music more difficult, I seize whatever opportunities come my way.

Music has taken me all over the world. The choir I sang with in college did a concert tour through Norway, Finland, and Sweden. I have traveled with the Metro Big Band Jazz Orchestra as their lead vocalist to Portugal and Guatemala (while I was six months pregnant with my daughter). I have performed with the Indianapolis Opera, San Antonio Opera, South Texas Lyric Opera, and Maui Onstage in the historic Iao Theatre. I have given concerts in beautiful, private residences, jazz clubs, ancient cathedrals, and art museums. I look forward to the new destinations music will take me.

I am also a writer and lover of art, which lends itself nicely to the amount of traveling I enjoy. I am passionate about freedom, rest, and spiritual discovery. I am still trying to get the hang of nomadic nesting, but I love all of the adventures that come alongside globetrotting with an ever-expanding family, sampling local mores while my husband attends medical school. In my spare time, I sing at our church, pine for the beach, take naps, write poetry, date my husband, read voraciously, bake gluten-free delicacies, create tropical cocktails, and contribute to Momma Theologians.

In 2018 my very first collection of poetry, a chapbook titled “Words the Dirt Meant to Share,” was published with Desert Willow Press. It is a tiny memoir in verse about the year we lived on the smallest island in the Dutch Caribbean, Saba. In 2020, my first full length collection of poetry, “Buried in the Margins,” published with Finishing Line Press. It is my hope that you can latch on to some healing catharsis through broken words finding their beauty.

More personally, I am a woman who loves people, coffee, and is eternally curious about other cultures and how they interpret love, God, food, and art. With four kids running around the house, my imagination (and physical fitness lol) remain on point. I am married to the greatest flawed man on the planet (the only way we come is “imperfect” but that makes us much more interesting). I write to understand myself, my community, the world around me, and the gracious God who made us all and keeps love in our hearts through the salvation Jesus.

Life can be rough, and we need an anchor. I would be lost at sea or probably dead if it weren’t for mine.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you stick around and enjoy a bit of reading.

In the iconic words of Bill and Ted, “Be excellent to each other!”